Category: Uncategorized
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Why feminism needs trans people and sex workers
Originally published in the New Statesman, 24th November 2014 There are several stories circulating about what happened at this year’s London Reclaim the Night march. The Sex Worker Open University have criticised the organisers for including a speaker from Object, a campaign group they claim oppresses those in the sex industry by picketing their workplaces and…
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Laddism is not just a working class phenomenon
This article was published in The Conversation with a changed title. The world media cognoscenti have been on a crusade recently against a particular brand of misogyny. And their campaign has achieved some results. Controversial comedian Daniel O’Reilly just announced that he is retiring his “Dapper Laughs” character after footage emerged of him on stage describing…
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Lad culture thrives in our neoliberal universities
Originally published in The Guardian “Now she’s dead but not forgotten, dig her up and fuck her rotten,” so chanted this year’s freshers at Nottingham University, in an incident hot on the heels of the revelation that the LSE men’s rugby team had distributed a freshers’ leaflet full of racist, classist, homophobic and sexist slurs. As…
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‘Normal birth’ and ‘breast is best’ – the neoliberalisation of reproduction
Originally published in Cost of Living In July this year Sir Marcus Setchell, recently retired surgeon gynaecologist to the Royal Family, made his first public statements about the birth of Prince George. Jenni Murray, interviewing him on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour almost a year after the event, asked him whether he had been entirely necessary.…
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‘I am a victim of nothing but my own bad choices’: Women Against Feminism and neoliberal individualism
Originally published in The F Word A group called ‘Women Against Feminism’ has recently been making the news. Now up to almost 20,000 likes on Facebook, the initial buzz was around its Tumblr where (mostly very young) women post photos of themselves holding messages about why they don’t want to be feminists. There are a variety…
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What’s driving the new sexism?
Originally published in the New Statesman “Rape, rape, rape.” Last week saw news of police investigating a group of young men, believed to be members of Cambridge’s drinking society The Wyverns, who had been videoed chanting this while marching down Oxford’s high street. This came days after it was revealed that Premier League chief Richard…
Alison Phipps 